DESIGNS FOR PANELS

The panel is often a very pretty shape for some designs. With a few exceptions, it is not as suitable for landscape painting as for flowers. A view of a waterfall makes a very pretty panel, as the shape of the design will admit of its being painted upon a panel. Small bits may be taken from landscape views, such as a woodland or meadow brook ; and in marine views a high cliff, or a great rock, with a stormy sky, and a dash- ing sea are pretty designs. The panel seems to be just the thing for flower painting. The gilt ones are beautiful with a spray of flowers running across from corner to corner. The apple blossom with its woody stem, and a few leaves, and also moss rose buds, are lovely on a o-ilt ground. Put a pretty sky on a narrow panel, with a ground work of fine grasses, and on the right or left, as you please, paint some tall field flowers and grasses, with a bird in flight, and you have a pretty design. This design may be varied by painting ferns and grasses, or tall white lilies on the side. Winter bits of landscape with birds in the foreground, are also pretty.

Amateurs who are good copyists and have never tried designing, would do well to paint their own designs from natural flowers. Group and intertwine the flowers and leaves, fastening them in place ; sketch the design diagonally across, or through the center, if preferred, taking care to have no stiffness in the detail. If success follows this attempt, countless beautiful designs may be painted from natural flowers. The

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handsomest panels are those made of dark fine grained wood with those in white wood for contrast. A dark panel may be painted with fine effect with bright scarlet or pink flowers, with rich green leaves and ferns.

Handsome paper weights, either square or of panel shape, may be cut from wood of sufficient thickness. Upon them may be painted a variety of designs. A spray of strawberry blossoms and leaves, with rich red berries, or a bunch of small white lilies and leaves are pleasing designs.

A small bird's nest, with blue eggs, surrounded with tall grasses, or a few dark flowers, with leaves of rich coloring, are handsome designs for a white ground. The pansy is a beautiful flower for a light ground, and if intertwined with a few dark green ivy leaves, the effect is still better.

Very handsome panels in imitation of the Japanese are two and three feet long, by half a foot wide. They are made of dark woods, or white, if preferred, for the mantel.

Those of white wood one and a half feet in length are handsome set upon tall ebony easels. Vines are the appropriate designs for these panels. The English and German ivies, with sprays of fine flowers, running irregularly through and across the surface, are handsome. One of the loveliest vines is the morning glory with its vines twisted into great ropes, and covered with dark green leaves, rich purples and delicate pink and white blossoms.

To vary the monotony of flower and landscape panels, paint upon a white wood panel, a comical design in white silhouettes, or paint an ebony panel with design in white silhouettes, finished, if you like, with a vine or arabesque around the edge.

There is a good deal of art in a spirited silhouette, and it would doubtless give many more pleasure than a finely executed flower piece ; not that they lack artistic sense or love of the beautiful, but that they appreciate more keenly portrayals of people and Hfe. "

Painting the panels of handsome hard wood furniture gives a very elegant effect. Large, heavy pieces will bear an elaborate design of flowers, or a small circular or oval landscape for a center, with flowers and vines in corners or running along edges.

In painting panels or any small surface, a great fault is the use of too many .flowers. One single spray of flowers with its leaves is much- more pleasing to the eye than a mass, or even two or three kinds, unless they be so skillfully harmonized that they seem to grow together.

Above all, simplicity should be studied in decorating any article with flowers ; but the simplest design should be so true to nature that it can- not but be beautiful.

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PASTEL OR COLORED CRAYON. '

If you are sufficiently accurate in sketching, you can, with charcoal, or lead pencil, make a correct outline on pastel paper. For this kind of painting you will want crayon, fine sponge, stump, and a piece of kid. Use the sharp folded corners in shading. Always commence painting with the dark shades, and blend with a stump or finger gradu- ally into the light. For darker shades use black, then go over with brown, and blend together. Put in the light shades as they belong, with soft and medium crayons, using the utmost care in blending with stump, to avoid a dingy and dirty appearance. Finish the picture with hard crayon, laying on in lines and blending with stump. Do not expect to have the right thing by simply laying on the colors once ; you must work line over line very carefully and many times. You must exercise great care that the picture does not become soiled in the deli- cate parts.

Pastel is well adapted for landscape drawing. The most useful colors are white, straw and light yellow, deep orange and yellow and brown ochre hues; blue — bright azure tints of varied strength, pale and dark ; grays, pale and deep : and neutral, warm tones ; red, vermilion tint, pale and middle Indian red.

Drawing in pastel is much easier than oil painting. One advantage over oil and water colors is the facility with which a picture can be completed ; this is manifest in out-door sketching, or upon any subject of which you wish a few memoranda and have but little time to obtain them.

The advantage of working with pastel does away with the tedious- ness of wailing the drying of oil and water colors.

POTICHIMANIE.

This is the art of imitating painting on glass or china. The most beautiful of the Chinese, porcelain, Sevres, Japanese or Etruscan vases can be so closely imitated that none not connoisseurs can discover, at first sight, the difference. The work is attractive and very simple ; the materials employed are few and inexpensive. This is very fascinating work, and, though the pottery mania has been carried to an excess, this is much different, besides being more durable.

First, select some plain glass vases, resembling in shape and size the particular style of china you wish to represent. Select your colored figures, representing the style of life you wish to imitate. Let them be rich and clear in their colors. You will need two or three small brushes, such as painters use, some strong gum-water, and a bottle of varnish. Use paint for the groundwork of the color you wish to represent. The ground color of t .e Chinese porcelain is, in general, a greenish white;

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the Sevres, a bluish white ; while the Etruscan is a pale yellow. These three colors are generally all that are wanted. A delicate pink is some- times used.

For any one kind of vase, only one ground color is necessary. A pair of very fine pointed scissors will also be required. Then proceed to cut out your figures with grtat care ; if you can cut a trifle within your figures, all the better, for no white edge must be visible. When they are all cut, arrange them on a sheet of paper in the order in which they are placed in the vase, and gum them very evenly and carefully on the colored side ; let them lay until the gum rather thickens and the paper on which they are colored softens ; then take them up carefully and place them in their proper places in the inside of your vase; press them carefully with a bit of old linen tight to the glass, excluding all air between them and the glass, otherwise bubbles will be formed and the work will be spoiled. When all the pictures are arranged, wipe the glass clean, except where it is covered by the pictures. After the work is dry and clean, varnish the back of the prints and paint the inside of the vase w th the ground color. Some persons pour it in the vase and let it run around, and then carefully brush it on ; some put it on near the picture by gently tapping the glass with the brush. Great care must be taken not to let the paint run under the paintings.

The antennse of butterflies and other minute objects may be imitated in gold, or by drawing them on the glass with gum water and sprink- hng them with gold bronze powder. This must be done before the ground paint is laid. Gold stars scattered over some kinds of vases improve them. You can buy, in these days of transfer pictures, Umost any design you wish. Gold bands and gaily colored bands are also for sale ; vines, birds, myihological and Egyptian figures, drag- ons, flowers, castles ; in fact, all designs imaginable can be had, and cheaply, too. If you prefer to color them yourself, be sure and have the colors clean and bright — the brighter they are the better they will appear. When gold is introduced it is better to use the shell, or pre- pared gold. It is appli'^d in the same manner as water colors, and may be used with good effect in borders single ornaments, flowers, insects, and to fill up where no other color is introduced.

This work may be used in various ways to decorate your homes. The inside of your vase should be varnished, to give it the smoothness of china, and you can have the rim gilded. If several coats of sizing are applied, the vase may be filled with water without injury to the paint; but you can fit cups or bottles to the vase in which to put water for flowers. Hall Limps, windows, etc., ate decorated in the same manner except that no ground color is used. Caiiinet boxes, tables, and a great variety of other articles, both useful and ornamental, may, with a little ingenuity and taste, be rendered extremely elegant. 20

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